Cost of text messages from China to America

[MarcRosie]

I was wondering if anyone could give me an idea of how much a text message costs to send from China (Chengdu) to America? I know it varies, but on average is it expensive? Thanks!

[dnoblett]

Yahoo Messenger can SMS US Cell Phones, and the phone can then reply. FREE.

 

Never tried sending a SMS to a China Cell phone though.

 

Skype may also offer this capability.

[b.c]

It depends. Is it a US based phone with US plan? Or is it China cp with Sim card?

 

If it is US based phone/plan then it can be very expensive. I think it cost me about $1 per text on my first trip several years ago. But then I found that Verizon has an international texting plan that is very inexpensive. iirc, its $10 per month plus .20 per text or something or maybe even much less. I dont pay much attention to my bill since then but my impression was that it was very reasonable.

 

If it is a china based phone then you can get sim cards that have extremely cheap SMS rates to USA. iirc, it only cost my wife about .25rmb (4 to 5 cents) per text.

[baobeizhu]

Basically my husband and I sent text message to our cell phone's email addresses constantly while he was in Beijing and I was in the US.

 

For example if you have verizon your email address is just xxxxxxxxxx@vtext.com

 

In china, many cell phones basically have the same function, for examply my spouse used a 联通 number and his cell's email address was xxxxxxxxxxx@m165.com and he just had to set up access for something like 5rmb/month for the email box.

 

Then you just send text messages to the cell number email addresses rather than the cell phone number directly and wala, no crazy international text message charges and no fancy cellphone needed to read text messages on your cell.

 

Hope this helps!

Edited March 10, 2010 by baobeizhu (see edit history)

[david_dawei]

this method is a bit involved but cheap;

 

Sign up at www.text2china.com and then port the account to your email account. If you have data service on your phone, you can send to her from the email account and she can send back at normal china rates.

 

The draw back is: Need data service on phone and text message length is limited. But since I have the former, I'm not concerned about the latter.

 

I have QQ on my phone. I sometimes talk to friend's in china to their phone which also has QQ. This also requires data service on your phone.

[RobertH]

I pay nothing for texts to China, I was a Altell customer so maybe it was just a deal I got with them. Hui spends 1rmb a text to me.

[weiaijiayou]

One other option is to get a "tracfone" for test messaging. Using it for calling probably won't be your cheapest option, but international text messages are the same as domestic ones: 1 text message uses 1/3 of a minute.

[timb]

This is what I use, works well and it's cheap.

 

http://www.talk2china.com/english/

[david_dawei]

This is what I use, works well and it's cheap.

 

http://www.talk2china.com/english/

glad you mentioned this... the URL I mentioned was wrong as I meant this.

[timb]

I thought was the case, but was not sure....

 

 

This is what I use, works well and it's cheap.

 

http://www.talk2china.com/english/

glad you mentioned this... the URL I mentioned was wrong as I meant this.

[reblooming]

I use my cellphone to text my fiance from china to USA,it costs 0.8RMB/text

[Greg & Chun]

Talk2China.com works great! I would write out my message in english, translate it to simplified chinese in Google translate and then check my work in MDBG online Chinese-English dictionary. (It helps that I am familiar with the pinyin translation and how it sounds.) Then I would send the chinese message to Chun via talk2China.com. She would reply and I would reverse the process to understand what she was saying. Seems like a long process, but it works!

 

Be careful - the translators only work to a point. Sometimes you need to change the word order or the word selection in the original english message to get the right message across. It is amazing how one innocent text can set up a flurry of responses! Just sayin'